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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



MONADNOC 



AND OTHER 



SKETCHES IN VERSE 



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Bf NESMITH 









CAMBRIDGE 
Pdntefc at tfee Bi&emtoe Press 

1888 



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Copyright 1888, 
By J. E. NESMITH. 

All rights reserved. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge : 
Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Company. 



Inscribed to 
H. R. N. 

" The barren tender of a poet's debt." 
Shakespeare 



CONTENTS. 



PA(5B 

MONADNOC 3 

A RHYME IN THE SADDLE ... 27 

SONNETS 35 

In March 37 

The Supreme Hour . . . . .38 
The Perfect State ..... 39 

To a Lady .40 

To Sleep ....... 41 

Vanity . 42 

Reveille .43 

A Summer Tempest 44 

The Blockhouse 45 

The Dual Nature op Man . . .46 

Between Two Worlds .... 47 

Dawn 48 

" Thou sayest, thinking that thy youth 

HAS PAST" 49 

A Last Wish ....... 50 

In the Woods 51 

In the Street ...... 52 



vi CONTENTS 

POEMS 53 

Sisladobsis Lake 55 

To Telbmachus 65 

JEquam Servare Mentem . . . .67 

Lines * ■ • 69 

In Memoriam 70 

Boat Song 72 

ELEGIACS 74 

EPIGRAMS 77 



MONADNOC. 

Knowing a better Spirit doth use your name, ' ' 

Shakespeare. 



MONADNOC. 

i. 

From field and fold aloof he stands, 
A lonely peak in peopled lands, 
Rock-ridged above his wooded bands : 

Like a huge arrow-head in stone, 
Or baffled stag at bay alone, — 
Round him the pack-like hills lie prone. 

The gentle hours, in gradual flight, 
Weave round his huge impassive height 
A warp of gloom, a woof of light : 

All day the purple shadows dream 
Along his slopes, or upward stream ; 
And shafts of golden sunlight gleam, — 

Searching the dusk of humid dells, 
To sleep among the sleeping wells, 
And frowning rocks where Echo dwells. 



MONADNOC. 

Mild as the breath from isles of palm, 
The breezes, blowing in the calm, 
Breathe sweet with balsam, fern, and balm 

Huge cloud-cliffs fringe the blue profound, 
And lift their large white faces round 
The dim horizon's distant bound. 

n. 

If the dull task begins to tire, 
When dawn's pure flood of rosy fire 
Strikes up each beaming wall and spire, 

Awake, and mount his rocky stair, — 
Drink deep from wells of taintless air, — 
And lighter grows the load of care : 

Hampshire's white hills at distance rise, 
Pure peaks that climb the azure skies, 
The peopled plain's blue boundaries. 

The mist, in wither'd wreaths and swirls, 
Is blown before the breeze which curls 
Up from the shining underworlds : 

Stray troops from teeming cities take 
His battlements with shouts, and make 
The sleepy echoes start awake ; 



MONADNOC, 

The ringing laugh, the random rhyme, 
Come back in mimic as they climb, 
From aged crags as old as time. 

We see the creeping morning train 
Crawl out across the distant plain, 
The smoke drifts like a dusky stain ; 

And hear afar the iron horse 

Hurl'd headlong on his gleaming course, 

A fragment of the cosmic force ; 

His screaming vapors hoarse with sound, 
And clash'd and crashing on the ground 
His clanging wheels roll'd ever round : 

A wing'd and wandering meteor sent 
To be a woodland wonderment, 
In vales and valleys indolent ; 

A fiery vision which invades 
The stillness of sequester'd shades, 
And daisied fields and drowsy glades ; 

And roars with an intenser light 
In dim recesses of the night, 
Filling the forest with affright. 



MONADNOC. 

Faint from below resounds or shrills 
His shriek among the lonely hills, 
His foot above the foaming rills ; 

He feels the fires that gnaw his heart, 
Before him shapes and shadows start, 
Behind him fields and forests dart ; 

He rolls along the ringing rails, 
The cliffs and loud indignant dales 
Echo with wild and warning wails. 

The shock and tumult came not near 
The still parks of the mountaineer, 
But softer sound for him to hear : 

His straining sight may only mark 
A floating smoke or flying spark 
Flit thro' the daylight or the dark. 

in. 

At dusk he watches from the steep 
The gloom which wraps the distant deep 
Across the sinking landscape creep ; 

To feed upon the tender light, 
And each serene and lovely sight 
That blooms upon the verge of night. 



MONADNOC. 

Beyond brown beds of brake and fern, 
Like embers in the night's black urn, 
The sullen fires of sunset burn : 

The caverns of the burning beam, 
Behind dark clouds, thro' rent and seam 
And fiery cracks and chasms gleam ; 

Deep pits of flame beyond the pines, 
Whose stems, in long and slender lines, 
Divide the light as day declines ; 

Fill'd with fierce fires which slowly wane, 
And glimmer on the distant plain, 
And lighten thro' the lonely lane. 

The darken'd woods and dim dull streams 
Brighten with the unearthly gleams 
Which haunt the western gate of dreams ; 

Which drape the hovel, lifted high 
Between the water and the sky, 
In beauty that transports the eye ; 

And throw their bright prismatic ray 
About the ruin'd, dying day, 
Which sinks in darkness and decay ; 



8 MONADNOC. 

Fallen about the fading west, 
By dim decrepit fires caress'd, 
And shades that suffer no arrest. 

The gloom about the mountain's base 

Crawls up and falls upon his face, 

His form grows faint in night's embrace. 

He takes upon his breast and head 
The glow which from the plain has fled, 
Ere yet the dying sun is dead. 

The trailing glories droop and die 
Along the lake where they did lie, 
And the wild light forsakes the sky. 

IV. 

The circle of the changing year 
Rounds slowly to the perfect sphere, 
His wither'd sides grow brown and sere 

Along his lone and barren crest 
The screaming gale, his only guest, 
Roars from the wild and dreary west — 

The cold and blustering winds intrude 
In his steep glens, and strong and rude 
Follow their immemorial feud. 



MONADNOC. \ 

Few now in these wild ways will come, 
But each, beholding that bleak dome, 
Draw^close his cloak and hurry home. 

His face above the frosty glen, 
The stiff and stark and frozen fen, 
Drops darkly from the thoughts of men. 

The gray and sombre woodland grieves 
In wither'd weeds of fallen leaves ; 
The patient earth her doom receives, — 

Mourning her blacken'd parks of oak, 
Like cities sack'd and scorch'd with smoke, 
And wasting of a mortal stroke, — 

Her stript and swept and frozen farms, — 
Bare orchard trees, whose naked arms 
The tender star-beam nightly charms. 

v. 

The winter brings her crystal swoon ; 
From her cold couch, the mystic moon 
Burns with pale fire the dim lagoon ; 

Her image glitters where she looks 

Upon the black and icy brooks, 

In barren tracts and treeless nooks ; 



10 MONADNOC. 

Her silver shackles flash and shake 
Upon the wild and freezing lake, 
When winds and waves are wide awake. 

The stream runs low with frozen lip ; 

, White storms their fleecy burden slip, 

And cloak the peak from base to tip ; 

The dazzling day, the steel-blue night, 
Bathe each bold crag and ice-capp'd height 
In zones and shafts of naked light. 

VI. 

When dreams of summer suns grow dim, 
New buds turn tender round his rim, 
The voice of Spring streams over him, 

To fall to earth in regions frore, 
Around that hyperborean shore 
Where her faint track appears no more. 

The drear but pregnant days have birth, 
Which sweep, thro' dismal scenes of dearth, 
The husk of winter from the earth : 

A thousand petty newborn rills 

Foam from the glens, whose music fills 

The cold recesses of the hills : 



MONADNOC. 11 

The ancient hollows of the snow 
Shrink and grow foul, the ice fields show 
The black and sullen pools below : 

The wild birds clutch the naked trees, 
Or flutter feebly in the breeze 
Which blows across the barren leas : 

The windy ways are thick and cold, 
The young year looks decay'd and old, 
The desolate peak more bleak and bold. 

VII. 

Bald crag, — he is more dead asleep 
Than long drown'd seamen in the deep, 
Where tides of awful stillness creep : 

He would not hear the bitter cry 
Should tender Youth and Beauty lie 
Stretch' d on his sharpest stones to die. 

What answers when the groping thought 
Would probe the depths whence he was brought,-— 
The unknown past which speaketh naught ? 

What change has warped the hills and leas 
Since first he rose to forms like these 
Above the wild Laurentian seas ? 



12 MONADNOC. 

The Alps and Andes were not born 
When first he saw the beaming morn 
Paint on the dark a world forlorn : 

He heard the wind of Destiny- 
Speed trackless over land and sea, 
Sowing the seeds of life to be : 

Where now the youths and maidens climb, 
The uncouth dragons of the prime 
Crawl'd at the gloomy dawn of time : 

He saw the arctic ice intrude 
Into his realm, summer exclude, 
And make a desert solitude. 

The Frost his crystal coils unwound, — 
In his cold circle crawl'd, wall'd round 
With snows and frozen deeps profound. 

VIII. 

The savage roam'd the fruitful land, — 
His past a gulf no bridge has spanned, 
A stream which withers in the sand : 

Either from Asia's ancient hives 
The tempests tossed a few frail lives, 
Whence the wild West her hordes derives ; 



MONADNOC. 13 

Or Nature, working out her plan, 
To mould the occidental man, 
Wrought the rich clay of Yucatan. 

There his wild roots took firmest hold, 

In cruel cities, long of old, 

Of which no traveler's tale is told : 

Whose crimes bold Cortes guess'd of yore, 
Finding along the lonely shore 
Abandon'd altars smear'd with gore : 

Whose thronging streets and temples stood 
Where now decay and ruin brood, 
Within a vast and ancient wood, 

Strewed with crude idols, fallen prone, 

The Molochs of a rite unknown, 

Like that which stained the Druid's stone. 

IX. 

Beyond the middle stream and plain, 
The race increas'd, from main to main, — - 
Grew mixed in blood, with many a strain ; 

Mound-builders and nomadic bands, 
Cliff-dwellers, who in hostile lands 
Hollow'd their homes with patient hands ; 



14 MONADNOC. 

And cut the Colorado's wall 

In forms grotesque, crude curve and scrawl, 

Strange shapes of things that swim or crawl 

"Warriors whose dusky mothers bore 
Tecumseh, Uncas, Sagamore, 
To keep the keys of savage lore ; 

"Who hunted here their tawny herds, 
And gave to mountains, brooks, and birds, 
The poetry of lovely words : 

Chocorua, whose utterance falls 

Like mountain echoes, and recalls 

Bald peaks, dark pines, and rocky walls ; 

Niagara, whose sound awakes 

Wild cataract voices, roaring breaks 

Of foam, white streams, and plunging lakes. 

The sweet-lipp'd Susquehanna sings 

The name they gave her, where she brings 

Her whispering waters from the springs ; 

And Minnehaha in the West, 

By those soft syllables caress'd, 

Will chide her wild waves when they rest, 



MONADNOC. 15 

And scold each into song again, 
To speak them to the pebbled plain, 
The pathless wood and steep moraine. 

They vanish' d like thin shreds of night, 
And ragged mists, from creek and bight, 
When seas are kissed with dawn's first light : 

Their voices with the streams are roll'd, 
And murmur when their names are told 
The music of the tongues of old. 

x. 

A stronger race possess'd the soil, 
To wrest therefrom the fruits of toil, 
And load their homes with peaceful spoil : 

Imperial peoples, crossing seas, 

From lands long loved and lives of ease, 

To colonize primeval leas ; 

Whose children rose to heights sublime ; 
Whose light increas'd to latest time, 
Not reaching now the perfect prime ; 

Which yet but flickers thro' the gloom, 
And flutters from the brinks of doom, 
To meet the darkness of the tomb. 



16 MONADNOC. 

When earth forgets that man was born, 
Monadnoc still shall hail the morn, 
His aged crags not yet outworn. 

He sits as when in moods of thought 
Men stare with vacant eyes at naught, 
Heedless of what around is wrought. 

A Titan fallen from the stars 

He seems, here in celestial wars 

Hurl'd down, and seamed with fearful scars ; 

His brow upturn'd to that high realm 
Where erst he rear'd his radiant helm, 
And godlike rushed to overwhelm. 

XI. 

Take flight and circle all the sky, 
More lofty mountains chain the eye, 
The themes of dim antiquity ; 

The Hindu Kailas, and those twain 
The twofold sacred rivers drain, 
Drawing their waters to the plain ; 

And Taurus ; Atlas, icy topped ; 
Tall Ararat whose pillars propped 
The Ark when all the waters dropped ; 



MONADNOC. 17 

The hills of Hellas, with their wells 

And fabled waters, classic cells, 

And column'd shrines and pine dark dells ; 

And many that sit eminent 
Within the broad-plain 'd Occident, 
Cordilleras magnificent : 

Primeval peaks of frost and fire, — 
Dome, wall, and pinnacle and spire, 
Which pierce the spirit with desire ; 

The ancient homes of high emprise, 

Like ocean opening to the eyes 

New lands, new hopes, and larger skies ; 

The seats of Freedom from of old, 
Quarries and mines whose ribs infold 
Rare crystals, silver, and pure gold ; 

The source of fruitful streams which flow 
Thro' teeming continents below, 
Beside whose banks great cities grow. 

XII. 

No everlasting ice has crown'd 
The crag above, no gold is found 
Within his rock-seal'd entrails bound 



18 MONABNOC. 

Yet here men feel the mystery, 
The power and ancient royalty, 
Which cloak the mountain and the sea. 

Imagination lightly springs 

From his hleak rock, and spreads her wings, 

And scales the heaven's cloudy rings. 

The cabin'd spirit here can find 
Free pastures, and the jaded mind 
The strength for which it was design'd. 

No classic pool is here, or shrine, 
But pillar' d temples of sweet pine, 
And cool pure waters crystalline ; 

A clear and dappled brook, inlaid 
With spotted sands, in sun and shade, 
From his tall top a long cascade, 

Till in the meads asleep it lies, 
And changing color with the skies, 
Mirrors the world like living eyes. 

xin. 

Here at the death of lovely days, 

What time the smouldering beam decays, 

Dark phantoms haunt the dusky ways ; 



MONADNOC. 19 

The shows of Fancy when she takes 

The gleams and glooms of night, and wakes 

A seeming life in forms she makes ; 

And working from dim clews, detects 

Conceal'd resemblances, effects 

Wrought of deep shade and day's bright wrecks : 

Dark boles like voiceless sentinels stand 5 
The glow of sunset's glimmering brand 
Burning along the dusky land : 

A sunken thicket then appears 

An ambush set with threatening spears ; 

A mask each groveling shadow wears, 

And mocks the gloomy beasts of yore, 
Whose shambling shapes appear no more, 
Whose dens the little lads explore : 

Fierce Bruin, burly, dull, uncouth, 
Huge honey lover, his sweet tooth, 
Blood-guilty, sharp, and bare of ruth, ■ — ■ 

Content to grub for worms or rut 
In rotten leaves, for herb or nut, 
Or offal from the logger's hut : 



20 MOKADNOC. 

The giant cat, who whilom kept 

The woods in fear, who, crouching, crept 

So softly cruel and adept ; 

The beautiful and pitiless, 
Cloth'd with perfidious loveliness, 
And smooth, soft skin that none caress ; 

Not now she rustles in the hush, 

Or springs from bending branch to crush 

The red deer in the trampled bush : 

The moody moose, morose, forlorn, 
His bearded head hung with huge horn, 
A monstrous growth each year newborn, 

A creature fashion' d in the mould 

Of sombre forests vast and old, 

Moss bound, and green thro' heat and cold, 

Obscure and sullen, timid, mild, 
True birth of that rude northern wild 
To whose dim swamps he seems exiled ; 

In touch with their mysterious shades, 
Dark hemlocks, pines, and cedar glades 
Whose mournful verdure never fades. 



MONADNOC. 21 

For him the lonely hunter waits 

And watches till dawn penetrates, 

In long bright cracks, night's sombre gates, 

What time his monstrous antlers loom 
Between the glimmering light and gloom, 
And totter where he meets his doom. 

XIV. 

Here once a careless foot might wake 
The coil'd and sleeping rattlesnake, 
And raise him bristling from the brake : 

Now where the dying sunbeam falls 
He haunts the naked plains, or crawls 
In canons and by mountain walls. 

A lonely lover of the sun, 

Tho' armed with death, content to shun 

The foe from which he will not run. 

Whom oft the scout, at break of day, 
Findeth beside the fainting ray 
Of his dim fire, with dumb dismay ; 

Or warmed within some inner fold 
Of his furred robe, made over-bold 
By the old curse that keeps him cold. 



22 MONADNOC. 

The harmless adder yet may hide 
Close by, upon the warm hillside, 
Or cool'd beside some crystal tide ; 

His chequer'd cousin, curl'd among 
The stones, may flicker with his tongue, 
And hiss, yet leave his foe unstung. 

The porcupine makes his wild home 
By gloomy rills which roll in foam, 
Dropped from the mountain's mighty dome 

The trout yet haunt the lucid streams, 
Now pois'd, still as the golden beams, 
Now darting thro' the watery gleams : 

The grouse, conceal'd from curious eyes, 
Drums in the wood, or whirring flies, 
Leaving us still with sharp surprise : 

A scornful eagle yet may dare 

The distant shot, the shout, the stare, 

And keep the lordship of the air : 

And when the wild and waning year 
Crisp curls the crystal mountain mere, 
The wary waterfowl appear. 



MONADNOC. 23 

XV. 

Tho' changed the forest flocks for herds 
Of cattle milking cream and curds, 
Call'd home at night with coaxing words, 

Tho' half the wood is cut and cull'd, 
Deep groves and dells there are unhulTd, 
Where lone delight is yet undull'd : 

The tall pines, vaulting vernal gloom, 
Roof their dim aisles, whose depths entomb 
The fallen beam, like some strange bloom : 

The pale pool-haunting wood-flowers prank 
The forest's floor, or dew-drench'd bank, 
By rock, and brook, and stagnant tank. 

The violet, in tangled nooks 

Thro' which the shatter'd sunbeam looks, 

Blooms near the velvet verge of brooks : 

The honeysuckle hangs her bells, 

By heated rocks, in bosky dells, 

The wild bees haunt their honey cells : 

The sumach burns along the steep, 
In autumn, as the slow weeks creep 
Into the year's long flowerless sleep : 



24 MONADNOC. 

The thistle, tasseled golden-rod, 
The purple grape, and tufted pod, 
Strew with cull'd blooms the faded sod : 

In the still air, the maples blaze, 
The beeches drop, thro' perfect days ? 
Their russet leaves o'er woodland ways ; 

Cream birches, yellow curtain'd, break 
The cloudless, pale blue sky, and shake 
Their sprays to the pellucid lake ; 

The curl'd cups of the gentian catch 
The eye with hues the heavens match, 
Tho* Winter's hand is on the latch» 

XVI. 

The mighty mountain sleeps thro' all 

The changes of this earthly ball, 

The dark, the light, the spring, the fall ; 

He has no message for man's ear, 
He neither shares his hope or fear, 
His playground or indifferent bier ; 

He dreams not of the deadman's night, 
The wrongful blow, the trampled right, 
The struggling beam, the misty light. 



MONADNOC. 25 



XVII. 

Soft cirrhous clouds above him creep, 
He rests in waters wide and deep, 
Now placid as an infant's sleep : 

The hours by day which sound below 
Awake him not, nor may he know 
Thro* the still night, their silent flow ; 

But when the arrowy lightnings plough 
The night of storms, and split the bough, 
The thunders, breaking round his brow, 

Fill with tumultuous waves of sound 
The heaven's gloomy gulf profound, 
That beating 'gainst each rocky bound, 

Smite his wild crags until they cry, 
Whose echo'd thunders roll and fly 
Thro' the loud caverns of the sky, 

Sent forth from that invisible height 

Across the chasm of the night, 

Black wall'd about sharp rays of light ; 



26 MONADNOC. 

As if a giant of the prime 

Felt his forgotten strength sublime 

Stir in a rude tempestuous time. 



A RHYME IN THE SADDLE. 

The day shines dead upon the height, 

The dusky fields grow dimmer, 
And one by one upon the night 

The stars begin to glimmer : 
The wintry way is wild and lone, 

The wither'd birches shiver, 
The wind forsakes them and is gone, 

I hear the flowing river. 

I hold my horse against his will, 

He feels the frosty weather, 
And links with perfect paces still 

The leagues of road together : 
His flying feet beneath me sound, 

While all the world is quiet, 
And with the hard melodious ground 

Dispute, coquet, and riot. 

Bright bay with mane and tail like jet, 

His strength, Arabian graces, 
Broad nostrils, shoulders strongly set, 

The gloss of high-born races, 



28 A RHYME IN THE SADDLE. 

Announce the line from which he came, 
The blood which he inherits, 

To English adding Eastern fame, 
And fiery docile spirits. 

I love a sleek and silken flank, 

And neck full arched and rounded ; 
A neat and natty foot and shank, 

In blood and bone well grounded ; 
Since I outgrew the top and toy, 

And rode a piebald pony, 
The horse has been to man and boy 

A faithful friend and crony. 

A second crop of joy is ripe 

When, something stiff and weary, 
I fill the dear post-prandial pipe, 

And all about is cheery ; 
And by the fire " outwatch the Bear," 

And speed the time with talking, 
And chase the flying brood of care 

Until the day is walking. 

When group'd about the brimming bowl, 

Spice-hot to suit the season, 
We feed the rising flow of soul, 

And taste the feast of reason : 



A RHYME IN THE SADDLE. 29 

Or let the flying fancy range, 

And flit o'er land and ocean, 
Thro' all the coming year of change, 

Whose wheels are now in motion. 

For tho' the monarch wear his crown, 

Tho' force and fraud yet flout us, 
A morning to the past unknown 

Begins to break about us : 
New facts are blown with every wind, 

And fall in fruitful furrows, 
And thoughts long growing in the mind 

Come trooping from their burrows. 

The wind of progress gathers force, 

And blows a froth of bubbles, 
Vague plots to alter Nature's course, 

And heal her hopeless troubles ; 
The false, the foolish, and the vain 

Shall pass away together, 
The true, the strong, the just remain, 

And bring us fairer weather. 

Tho' Demos rule the world at last, 

Tho' where his power reaches, 
The forms well honor'd in the past 

Drop off like rotten peaches, 



30 A RHYME IN THE SADDLE. 

I hold the faith my fathers held, 
And fast by their foundation, — 

The State where License never yell'd, — 
A democratic nation. 

The fairest flower still will show 

When old experience blossoms, 
Too late in bud to fully blow 

In young and blooming bosoms ; 
But this is true since first the fire 

In aged blood grew colder. 
The son is wiser than his sire, 

A generation older. 

But whither is creation hurl'd ? 

'T is said when stark and staring, 
The remnant of a ruin'd world, 

Slow forms of death outwearing, 
Some comet or erratic star, 

With dreadful detonations, 
May strike and whirl it fast and far, 

In sickening gyrations ; 

The hills shall topple in the wave, 
Or crack in yawning chasms, 

And Nature totter from her grave 
In giant throes and spasms ; 



A RHYME IN THE SADDLE. 31 

Broad ocean and the solid sphere 

Break up in misty masses, 
And like a bubble disappear 

In thin and glowing gases. 

Vague voices in the human clay 

Can cozen, pique, and flatter, 
" The Spirit flits on wings away 

From dead and emptied matter ; " 
But let whatever will arise, 

I fear no pleasant folly, 
Nor make my pass to Paradise 

A moral melancholy. 

I would not rob the groaning earth 

Of its immortal berry, 
And men with magic in their mirth 

To make Ill-nature merry ; 
My heart is warm with healthy blood? 

Not sapless as a shaving, 
Not wholly bad if little good, 

And softer than the paving. 

I ride by many a lonely ground ; 

By farms and village stations, 
I watch the lanterns moving round 

The yards and dim plantations ; 



32 A RHYME IN THE SADDLE. 

Sometimes the darkness near me shakes, 
A nearer spark moves quicker, 

A little beam of light which makes 
The giant shadows flicker. 

I ride by many a lonely light, 

And house with scarce a neighbor, 
The homes of many a wither'd wight, 

Bent low with honest labor ; 
Grown gray in ancient grooves of thought, 

Unvexed by a new-comer, 
The freshness of whose springs are brought 

From summer unto summer. 

Like gnarled and knotted oaks which grow, 

Thro' good and evil weather, 
In twisted quarrels, to and fro, 

A hundred ways together; 
And lift their gaunt and giant arms 

To all the winds of heaven, 
Deformed and torn with wintry harms, 

Moss-bound and thunder-riven. 

In discontent as much as scorn 

We prate of rural bumpkins, 
For most of ruling minds are born 

Among the corn and pumpkins ; 



A RHYME IN THE SADDLE. 33 

And that dumb strength which curbs the flood, 

When blatant humbug babbles, 
And stirs the thin and fever'd blood 

Of hot and reckless rabbles. 

But in the treadmill of the town, 

And train'd in the professions, 
"We fear the public sneer or frown, 

And make but faint impressions ; 
Each fitting by a sort of knack 

His individual socket, 
And pack'd together as we pack 

A puzzle in its pocket. 

And something too is lost we know, 

That's to the person proper, 
If round about the world we go, 

From Zanzibar to Joppa ; 
For tho' the traveler receives 

Addition from each nation, 
Yet something of himself he leaves 

Behind at every station. 

God formed the world of ample size, 

And built his barrier mountains, 
That all the rills of earth should rise 

Pure streams from separate fountains, 



34 A EHYME IN THE SADDLE. 

Should each its little world adorn, 
With waves that leap and dally, 
About the rocks where it was born, 
Within its native valley. 



SONNETS. 



SONNETS. 



IN MARCH. 

i. 
More than the days that bring the bursting pod 
I like the bare bleak month when bluebirds come, 
Spring's harbingers, to their new northern home, 
And rural walks and woods are seldom trod ; 
When whistling rustics plough the breathing sod, 
And floods expand in ponds or plunge in foam, 
And easeless winds about the skyey dome 
Errand the vast activity of God. 
The rushing streams and surging, shifting skies, 
The melting snows, and varied sun and shower, 
Reveal the toils of a resistless Power, 
Which sweeps decaying winter from men's eyes, 
And breathes in languid minds fresh energies, 
Before the budded branch or earliest flower. 



38 SONNETS. 



THE SUPREME HOUR. 

ii. 

Might one forelearn the wisdom of his years, 
Or know to rend the veil concealing fate, 
What dominant hour of ill or good estate 
Would rise the loadstar of his hopes or fears ! 
Were it some hour foreseen that now appears 
His soul's supreme occasion and true date, 
Or might his thoughts some humbler hour await, 
And strong presentments prove untruthful seers ! 
But no oracular star, or choral chime, 
Heralds that hour in human lives supreme, — 
Be thou, O Soul, obsequious to the time, 
The present hour that none or few esteem, — 
Intent with curious cunning to elect 
Thine unknown lord by signs that tempt neglect. 



SONNETS, 39 



THE PERFECT STATE. 

in. 
Softly the sea is lapping in the caves ; 
Lightly yon fishing hoat it doth upbear, 
Using its giant strength with gentle care : 
Lashed by tormenting winds it rocks and raves, 
Ridged in huge troughs and trenches, seamen's 

graves, 
But soon to sleep again, serene and fair ; 
And in the depths, tho' tempests roar in air, 
Perpetual quiet broods beneath the waves. 
Thus, too, a bright and puissant State will be, 
Whose power, revealed in strife, strikes fear and 

awe, 
Whose heart is peace, made mild by liberty : 
Storms may arise and broils and public war, — 
Herself from transient tumult she will free, 
And keep unchanged her ancient calm of law. 



40 SONNETS. 



TO A LADY. 

IV. 

Lady, no more the Soul of Nature seems, 
Where thou art, harsh or cold, but warm aud 

mild, 
The lovely mother of a lovelier child : 
This sea which brightens in the moon's pale 

beams, 
Mantling the blacken'd rocks with silver streams, 
And rolling to the shore with uproar wild, 
Seems soon by thy sweet neighborhood beguil'd, 
And softly to thy fair feet crawls and creams. 
Beauty like thine first taught the world to love, 
Gave wings to care, and lull'd the ancient dread 
Of nature as a enamel of the dead ; 
Thus to that ark the olive-bearing dove 
Brought from afar its branch of green to prove 
That the great deep was somewhere islanded. 



SONNETS. 41 



TO SLEEP. 

v. 
Dim prince, enchanter, strong benignant Sleep ! 
When Night her dusky curtain round has hung, 
Moving unseen, with silent step, among 
Passion's pale sons, with healing slumbers deep, 
Bidding soft dreams 'neath tired eyelids creep ; 
Spirit of peace, from brooding Darkness sprung, 
Whose lulling hours, around the sad earth flung, 
The phantoms of the day at distance keep, 
And eyes long used to sorrow cease to weep ; 
" Brother to Death " in many a sweet lay sung, 
Who lov'st in soft oblivion to steep 
The sense of weary mortals, old and young ; 
Now midnight's drowsy warning bell has rung, 
Oh, touch me, soothe me, silent, solemn Sleep ! 



42 SONNETS. 



VANITY. 

VI. 

If noble acts are marred by Vanity, 
Without acts Vanity is doubly shamed, 
Preposterous, impotent, and evil famed, 
Wanting the proud excuse of victory, 
The exaltation, fiery energy, 
Which mark the chief of men by worlds ac- 
claimed ; 
And all the pomp Obsequiousness has framed 
To feed the Hero's self-complacency. 
If, being big with purpose, Vanity 
Bring forth disastrous failure and eclipse, 
Like a sick womb or foiled conspiracy, 
The curse of scorn falls from contemptuous lips ; 
But if Success a natural pride forego, 
They speak a praise more pure than Csesars 
know. 



SONNETS. 43 



REVEILLE. 

VII. 

What time in cold eclipse the world is drown' d, 
If that the Sun uplift his shining face 
Above the hills for his triumphant race, 
Murmurs and hum of rousing men run round 
The green earth's rim, hammers and axe resound, 
Bugles to battles call, horns to the chase, 
And smokes like incense rise to his steep place ; 
Such homage men must pay from their low 

mound. 
Thus when the morning star of hope and will 
Rises in minds inert and slumbering, 
Drums beat to arms and sounding trumpets 

shrill, 
Fires burn and banners fly, and anvils ring, 
And active hands hew, weave, and plant and till, 
Wherever thought takes outward shape and wing. 



44 SONNETS. 



A SUMMER TEMPEST. 

vin. 
Along the hills the breathless forests dream, 
Unvisited, and in the yellow light 
The grass grows golden, and the birches white 
Print their pale shadows in the darken'd stream, 
Each twig distinct imprest ; no warblers seem 
To stir the stagnant air, no wing takes flight ; 
Athwart the west, in sombre purple dight, 
The silver, silent lightnings sharply gleam. 
Anon a spreading gloom creeps up the sky, 
The Tempest drapes the azure dome in black, 
Rolls up the rain, the whirlwind, and the rack, 
And thunders in a roaring torrent by ; 
And every jeweled spray, afar and high, 
Sparkles and glitters in its dewy track. 



SONNETS. 45 



THE BLOCKHOUSE. 

IX. 

On this low mound above the foaming falls, 
A hill of vantage when in days of old 
The vast primeval forest round them roll'd, 
The watchful woodsman reared these ruin'd 

walls, 
Whence men yet cut the buried musket balls ; 
In times of fierce attack their safety-hold, 
When broke in near, like wolves upon the fold, 
The painted hordes whose memory yet appalls. 
The deep and gloomy forest is no more, 
These black and wasted walls are near their end, 
Round them to-day broad farms and shires ex- 
tend ; 
Nature retains no images of yore 
But the still waters rippling round the bend, 
And lapping in the sedges by the shore. 



46 SONNETS. 



THE DUAL NATURE OF MAN. 

x. 
Affection, Passion, Sorrow and Delight, 
Ambition, Discontent, and Love and Hate, 
Appear in each man's mind and rule his fate, 
The weeds and flowers of life, the wrong and 

right 
Which mar or grace its every depth and height : 
Yet each can truth and harmony create, 
The good refine, the evil subjugate, 
Ruling the ill he cannot disunite. 
Tho' sudden tempests shake this mortal ark, 
Tho' Discord ever seeks her ancient sway, 
Grief blinds us in a rough and stony way, 
Fair days wear out in gloom which hides the 

mark, — 
Something is gained from the primeval dark 
To cheer the earnest Seeker and repay. 



SONNETS. 47 



BETWEEN TWO WORLDS, 

XI. 

Rivers of gold, and wondrous argosies, 
With purple sails, and banners gaily dight, — 
Palace and porch, and walls of shining light, 
Which seem'd but now to crowd the western 

skies, 
Have faded from the world's delighted eyes : 
Belated on the borders of the night, 
I watch the ethereal shape take flight, 
And from the darken'd earth the twilight dies. 
The faded fields grow formless, cold, and stark, 
Fallen in shadow, like a lifeless swoon, 
And sunk in black oblivion lie forlorn ; 
But now low down, a nebulous light is born, 
Where veil'd beyond the pines, the mellow moon 
Pencils a fairy world upon the dark, 



48 SONNETS. 



DAWN. 

XII. 

Between the Dayspring and the dying Moon 
I rode when winds were dreaming ; faint, forlorn, 
The Star of Morning sank in seas of dawn ; 
Girt in gray hills, where lay a low lagoon, 
Spectral and dim the curling mists did swoon : 
Like a wan lady waking from dark dreams, 
Earth lay beneath the waning moon's pale beams, 
Breathing the languid airs of middle June. 
It was the hour when oftenest sick men die, 
Like stars that shrivel in the morning's breath ; 
When life's great tide ebbs backward sullenly, 
Bearing lost souls to unknown deeps of death, 
Ere the great Sun, with outstretched, kingly hand 
Calls all its waters back through all the land. 



SONNETS. 49 



XIII. 

" This said, he set his foot upon the light." 

Thou sayest, thinking that thy youth has past 
Lost to one hope, thy early, only quest, 
" Behold the law herein made manifest, 
What fate has fixed no god can overcast, 
Hard is the toil, and Azrael follows fast ; 
Were it not better in cool courts to rest, 
And mock the insolent hours with mirth and jest, 
Whose hands are shut to smite us at the last." 
Beware lest thou should'st sometime after stand 
And mark with cold uncomprehending eyes 
Thy maiden Hope immaculate arise, 
Beseeching with entreating lips and hand, 
Yet feel no chord respond to her command, 
And in thy soul no tender memories. 



50 SONNETS. 



A LAST WISH. 

XIV. 

As one long hounded by ill winds and seas, 
Outstretched in some serene and fruitful isle, 
Exults the more that he despaired erewhile, 
So, haply, one unwonted erst to ease, 
Love's delicate ways and days more deeply please. 
The frown of Fortune must make dear her smile, 
Her gifts appear more rare by each sad mile 
Of sea men traverse to her island leas. 
I would not quarrel with the tardy fate 
Which brought my bark, tho' 'neath a stormy sky, 
To quiet lands where only zephyrs sigh, 
But let me suffer now Time's fiercest hate, 
Rather than reach a happier shore too late, 
Like some wreck'd wretch who gains the rocks 
to die. 



SONNETS. 51 



IN THE WOODS. 

XV. 

It is not fantasy that I divine 

A ministration in the touch of earth, 

And failing power, take thence a second birth 

Of heart and hope. The life of oak or pine 

Not more dependent is thereon than mine, 

Thence harvesting true health and natural mirth 

In spring's abundance or in autumn's dearth, 

A part with them in Nature's vast design. 

The fresher fields are those that, winter sick, 

The traveler seeks in early March, and feels 

His strength renewed, twice paid for what is 

spent ; 
The power that breathes around to him is lent, 
Into his veins a quickening life stream steals 
That cannot pierce our sheathed streets of brick. 



52 SONNETS. 



IN THE STREET. 

XVI. 

Methinks invisible agencies there are 

'Twixt soul and soul ; that each to each extends 

A salutation, and in passing, blends 

Its being, by the body's sensual bar 

Impeded not ; that none, or near or far, 

Their fellows meet, but that each spirit bends 

In sympathy — is altered in its ends — 

As dips the needle to the northern star. 

If this be fantasy, my soul yet feels 

A perturbation in these thronging streets ; 

The agitations of innumerous souls 

Evinced in vagaries my own reveals, 

That like a faithful compass falsely cheats, 

Drawn from its centre by conflicting poles. 



POEMS. 



POEMS. 

—4 

SISLADOBSIS LAKE. 



i. 



Upon the low dim verge of night, 
The Moon, new risen, shines, 

And hangs, a golden globe of light, 
Above the distant pines. 

Received into the glowing skies, 
She looks along the world ; 

From each white cliff that underlies, 
The troubled Dark is hurled : 

Driven to lurk in black-browed woods, 

In many a secret lair : 
Alone the new-born brightness broods 

On shining lake and air. 

With rapid strokes, the light canoe 

Is darted from the shade, 
A shallop that might float in dew 

So delicately made. 



56 SISLADOBSIS LAKE. 

The paddles flash like glistening gems, 
Lave their bright blades, and make 

Swift circles round their buried stems, 
A shining silvery wake. 

Again we shoot into the dark, 
Beneath the fir-fringed shore, 

And lightly land our dripping bark, 
And pace the pebbly floor. 



H. 

O pleasant toils by stream and mere, 

By distant hill and dale, 
When Autumn paints the fading year, 

And freshening frosts prevail ! 

How sharp and clear the crispy air, 
How calm and crystal cool 

It doth envelop all things fair, 
Far cliff and dreaming pool ! 

Within its delicate depths all day 
The braided cloudlets crept, 

Unnoticed ; cradled far away 
The drowsy Zephyrs slept j 



SISLADOBSIS LAKE. 57 

All day, till evening drooped her wings, 

We toiled and wearied not, 
And drank at its unsullied springs, 

By all the world forgot. 



in. 

Tall grows the ruddy forester, 

By him the dew is trod, 
The frosts of morn ; early astir 

With rifle and with rod, 

He breathes the tender air and breaks 
The dreamy bonds of sleep, 

What time along the glassy lakes 
The mists of morning creep : 

He sees the thin gray smoke that steals, 

Like some mute sacrifice, 
Into the windless void and feels 

Its way along the skies : 

And hears the ringing axe that makes 

The morning musical ; 
Anon the crashing pine that shakes 

The turf beneath its fall. 



58 SISLADOBSIS LAKE. 

All day beneath the pale blue dome 
He haunts the lonely stream, 

Where restless falls are dashed in foam, 
Or stiller waters dream ; 

Or brushing thro' the silent woods, 

By dim discovered trails, 
Is lost in far off solitudes, 

In distant groves and dales. 

The sombre fires of sunset burn 
To warn him from those ways, 

And brighten round his late return 
Thro' many a shadowy maze. 

All night his dying camp-fire gleams 
Beneath the deepening gloom ; 

All night he hunts the deer in dreams, 
Thro' dells of feathery bloom. 



IV. 



Deep shadows on these gloomful bays, 

Deep shadow by the shore, 
Save where the mirrored moonbeam lays 

Its shaft of shining ore ; 



SISLADOBSIS LAKE. 59 

Or falls in some translucent plot 

To make the forest bright, 
And drops full many a gleaming clot 

And crust of silvery light. 

Home bound from distant streams we bring 
The spoil of lake and wood, — 

The teal with iris-tinted wing, 
And chestnut tawny hood ; 

The loon, most melancholy bird, 

Whose mournful laugh or cry, 
At dawn or quiet eve, is heard 

Within the brooding sky : 

A gray wild goose that these still lakes 
Drew downward from the cloud, 

Hasting from lands the sun forsakes 
And frost and ice enshroud, — 

Flying between the pine and palm, 

The snowflake and the flower ; 
From northern tempests to the calm 

Of tropic stream and bower : 

A father of the forest flocks, 
In fatness like the bream, 



60 SISLADOBSIS LAKE. 

Killed in mid flight among the rocks 
Of a foam whitened stream. 

With pseans round the festal board, 
How may the Muse relate, 

Recounting feats by fell and ford, — 
The victim's plaintive fate ? 

Can she forget, when lull'd the pulse, 
The quick and panting prey, 

The blood and ruin that insults 
The pure unsullied day — 

And Nature's fearful mysteries 
Of entrail, duct, and gland, 

Betrayed before unknowing eyes, 
By an unfeeling hand ? 

Let those condemn who are content 
To stuff their ribs with bread ; 

Yet must the Falconer lament 

The plumed swan, stained and dead. 



SISLADOBSIS LAKE. 61 



V. 

Give honor to the old bow string, 

The arms of Robinhood ; 
But Killdeer has a fleeter wing 

To fly by fell and flood. 

Give honor to the Lincoln green, 

But fitter clad, no doubt, 
Is crafty Leather Stocking seen 

In fawn skin, fringed about. 

To him these woods are thick with sign3 ; 

These groves of gloomy firs, 
Dark forests of primeval pines, 

And swampy junipers : 

Such as in Scandinavia rear, 

Beneath the northern night, 
Their towery tops, by cataract sheer, 

Fiord and gleaming bight : 

As dear to men of sturdier seed 

As are the date and palm 
To men of softer southern breed, 

In lands of tropic calm. 



62 SISLADOBSIS LAKE. 

Long leagues or healthy toil will rack 

The toughest thews of men, 
But not with the fatigues that track 

The spent and travailing pen ; 

Or warp the wrinkled wretch who wrings, 

From an impoverished soil, 
Made poor by thirty growing springs, 

A scant and meagre spoil. 

Soon shall the crackling camp-fire throw 

Its beams upon the night, 
And groups of ruddy faces glow 

About its flickering light : 

Old tales be told of hart and hound, 

And moose of mighty girth, 
And cups of mystic fire run round 

To loose the lips of Mirth. 

And each at last his blanket seek, 

And seal day-wearied eyes, 
Until another morning streak 

With rose the eastern skies. 



SISLADOBSIS LAKE. 63 



VI. 

Not Garda's nor yet Como's floods 

A clearer depth disclose 
Than thine, broad lakelet of the woods, 

In sunlight and repose : 

When all thy fringed and rocky shore, 

In vivid beauty drest, 
Is mirrored on thy glassy floor, 

Each leaf distinct imprest ; 

With all the white-faced clouds that float 

In the cerulean blue ; 
And every painted passing boat, 

Or bird of brilliant hue. 

Not Constance rolls a whiter foam, 
When frosty night winds scream, 

And brightening in the dark blue dome, 
The moons of Autumn gleam ; 

And bursting billows follow fast 

The fragile flying bark, 
Roll'd like a cork before the blast, 

And tossing toward its mark. 



64 SISLADOBSIS LAKE. 

Cold from the gateways of the north 
The starlight tempests sweep, 

And fleck the frozen beach with froth, 
And fret the forest's sleep ; 

Their keen and vigorous streams are blown 

About the boatman's hair, 
And dash his face with spray, and moan 

Within the upper air. 

But later fiercer frosts will steal 

Into these naked woods, 
On slow and silent wings, and seal 

In ice their crystal floods ; 

And touch the lake with numbing breath, 

And throw a subtle chain 
About its waves, hid soon beneath 

A dark and glittering plain, 

That still reflects the stars, and takes 

The crimson tints of eve, 
Until the softly falling flakes 

Its winter garment weave. 



TO TELEMACHUS. 

Beware if lying lips 

To self-content entice ; 
Who of their honey sips 

Drinks from the cup of vice : 
Yea ! Eve in Eden heard 
No more insidious word. 

Swerve not if Scorn or Hate 

At thee their arrows try, 
Above their worst thy state, 
Malignant truth or lie : 

The wounds that they impart 
Betray the guilty heart. 

Let not the hope to climb 

Tempt thee to harlotries, 
To prostitute thy time 
And virgin energies ; 
Nor desecrate or stain 
Thy hand with ill-got gain. 



66 TO TELEMACHUS. 

Forgotten histories, 

In costly tomes ornate, 
In vain immortalize 

The fortunate and great ; 
Yet may a simple song 
A virtuous fame prolong. 

Distrust the treacherous sense 

Of power, the throes of youth ; 
The withering heats intense 
Of time, which know not ruth, 
Will dry thy little brook, 
So noisy in its nook. 



jEQUAM servare mentem. 

Who gives his peace, too much he gives, 
Tho' for the victor's wreath ; 

To rack thereby the life he lives, 
And breathe a troubled breath. 

That is the act of petty powers, 

And talents over-tried ; 
True greatness grows thro' quiet hours, 

A deep yet tranquil tide. 

The men who live upon the lips, 
The strong, the calm, the sane, — • 

Felt not the fierce uneasy whips 
"Which vex the weak and vain ; 

But strove in simple scorn of ease, 
Nor look'd to Fortune's lure ; 

Content to win by slow degrees 
The praises of the pure. 



68 ^EQUAM SERVAEE MENTEM. 

They made no boast, put forth no claim, 

Not wanting self-respect, 
Nor fever'd by the thirst for fame, 

Nor sicken'd by neglect. 

But let no unused day go by, 
And forced, in spite of chance, 

The golden opportunity, 

The crowning circumstance. 

Or if a sudden hope arose, 
Theirs the decisive thought 

Which moves in act, quick to propose, 
And quick to action brought ; 

The iron will which like a wedge 

Forces opposing walls, 
The firmness of a rocky ledge 

Which curbs the foaming falls. 

Self-knowledge, making strong and mild 
And worth, which all accost, 

Held them above the stormy wild 
Where vain desire is tost. 



LINES. 

Man in his hour of pride saith haughtily/' 

" Long labored Earth, and lo, for me her toil, 
The fruit whereof is mine, and sea and soil, 

And lives innumerable that live for me. 

The fate of bird and beast is in my hand, — 
I slay the rushing lion from afar, 
And read the riddle of an unseen star, 

And look into the sun and understand. 

Winds blow and waters roll to feed my state, 
The rapid lightning I have turned apart, 
The desert blooms beneath my wand of art ; 

Yea, like a god I fashion and create. 

But what is man, whose outworn buried bones 
Survive to mock his living memory ? 
" The hills sleep on in their eternity, 

The man is lost beneath sepulchral stones. 



IN MEMORTAM. 

O ye delightful days of youth, 

Now mourn'd with pity and with ruth, 

With love and wisdom mourn'd too late, — 

How fair, beyond compare, his fate 

Who learns your sovereign worth when young, 

And loves the song when it is sung : 

Who never from his purpose fell 

To love life well and use it well ; 

And looking backward still can see 

Day link'd to day in symmetry ; 

Whose summers never cease to be 

A bright and pleasing memory ; 

Dead summers, far too dead for tears 

Beneath the snows of twenty years ! 

"lis more than hoarded gold to be 
From fickleness of faith set free : 
"lis well for him whose path is made 
Where seldom carking cares invade ; 
Or in the green fields or the wood 
We hide from every sullen mood, 



IN MEMORIAM. 71 

And ply the pencil and the brush, 
Or hunt the habits of the thrush, 
We find our profit being brought 
To nature in our life and thought. 
So shall our summers ever be 
A bright and cloudless memory, 
Dead summers not to mourn with tears 
Beneath the snows of twenty years, 



BOAT SONG. 

Afloat, afloat, in a gallant boat, 

We would not be ashore, 
Tho' storms arise and hide the skies, 

And some return no more. 

The harbor clear'd, the good ship steered 

Straight for the open sea ; 
The winds that sweep along the deep 

Have not more liberty. 

The favoring gale fills out our sail, 

And lightly we are gone ; 
And touching here and touching there 

On easy wings are borne. 

The roving breeze, the rushing seas, 

Will bear us compady, 
And fleecy clouds that float in crowds 

Above the topmast tree. 



BOAT SONG. 73 

The snowy deck no dust can fleck, 

A fair familiar lea ; 
The whistling cords, like singing birds, 

Sound in the topmast tree. 

Let others boast their quiet coast, 

We love the foaming sea, 
Our stormy hours more than their bowers, 

And lives from care set free. 



ELEGIACS. 

Many at first indecisive yet come, ere too late, 

to decision ; 
Few, once decision is lost, ever possess it again. 



Vices attack us as barnacles cover the bottoms of 

vessels ; 
Vices so gather'd we may haply be freed from in 

time : 
Vices ingrained in our natures like faults in a 

vessel's construction 
Never forsake us, yet are faults we can never 

avoid. 



Justly the age of the Poet partakes of his glory 

and honor; 
For the heart of his time beats in the Poet's 

own song. 



ELEGIACS. T5 

Not that the loving ones flatter, O Cynic, we joy 

in their presence — 
Better when near them we are ; haply in that is 

the charm, j 



Even the lives of the greatest are veiled from in- 
quisitive mortals ; 

Like the Creator himself, only in deeds they ap- 
pear. 

Eagerly seek'st thou the plaything, my spaniel, 
and only to drop it ; 

Also we often attain (vainly) the bauble suc- 
cess. 



Temper seduces the wisest of mortals to speak 

like the foolish ; 
Patience enables the fool often to seem like the 

wise. 



Back to the ocean the cloud-scattered waters in- 
cessantly hasten ; 
So to eternity Time ever is hurrying back. 



76 ELEGIACS. 

As the Atlantic, O mortals, all trace of our pas- 
sage destroyeth, 

So shall the ocean of time cover the traces of 
man. 



EPIGRAMS. 

As the sleek coats of panthers please the sight, 
So that we half forget the cruel heart, 
So manners to an evil mind impart 

A grace in which the wisest may delight. 



Some natures, like cathedral glass, 
Opaque and cold to outward sight, 

If to their heart we find a pass 

Transfigured shine and bathed in light. 



You for men's bodies plot and plan ; 
You for their souls as best you can ; 
And I for men's and my behoof, 
Serve my own soul, build my own roof. 



Wouldst seem to friends and neighbors wise ? 
Appear so first to other eyes. 
Wouldst seem of goodly strength to men ? 
Strive not with Gods or Angels then. 



78 EPIGKAMS. 

I hold the world is like a billiard table : 
It has its fatal pockets, wherein trips 
The heedless mortal, meeting fell eclipse ; 
And he who plays to win there must be able 
To make rebuffs the means to gain his end, 
And to a crook'd progression condescend. 



The mannerless are like a stagnant pool 
Which travelers avoid with patient care ; 
Conflict with such befits the boor or fool, 
The wise will shun the insult and forbear. 



The screaming night is wild with driving snow, 

And bitter blasts about the welkin blow. 

Huge waves, like sheeted sea ghosts, climb the 

rocks, 
To fall incessant back with streaming locks ; 
Far on the spectral deep they shriek and rise 
Round some doomed ship and storm against the 

skies ; 
Yet deep in yonder castle's gloomy keep 
The Queen of Beauty still doth softly sleep. 



EPIGRAMS. 79 

Knowing the peach is ripe enough to eat, 
Let it not hang till superfinely sweet, 
Lest one less hypercritical than thou, 
While thou delayest, break it from the bough. 



If thou desirest Happiness, 
Let not the past thy mind depress ; 
These, too, she will demand of thee, 
Serenity, activity. 




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